Restaurant Roundup: Oyster bar coming, Falls Overlook Cafe reopening

We’re getting an oyster bar – at least for a day! Dakota Seafood Co. will be at the Carpenter Bar starting at 4 p.m. Friday, selling oysters until they’re gone. The Dakota Seafood staff will do all the shucking at the downtown bar. They’ll sell the oysters for $3 a piece and serve them with a variety of sauces – lemon, hot, cocktail and mignonette, which is minced shallots and cracked pepper in vinegar.

No, The Market isn’t moving into the old Ming Wah space downtown. Restaurant owner Laurel Lather said she received lots of questions from diners after they saw architectural renderings in the news about a proposed facade remodel for the building on 10th Street with a large “The Market” sign. “I set myself up by having such a generic name,” Lather joked. “I can see where everyone got that idea because every five years I move, trying to find that better location. But I’ve found it now,” she said of The Market’s home in the Harvester Building on Sixth Street east of Phillips Avenue. “We love it here.”

Here’s another sign of spring! Half-Baked is selling SDSU ice cream again by the scoop. The rotation of flavors at the downtown bakery has kicked off with a mostly cookie theme: chocolate cookies and cream, mint cookies and cream, cookies and cream, caramel chocolate chip, chocolate chocolate chip, raspberry cheesecake, Barry Berry and vanilla. Save 50 cents on all ice cream treats on Fridays.

Falls Overlook Cafe will reopen for the season April 2. The cafe on the east side of the Big Sioux River at Falls Park will be open from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. weekdays. It will operate those same hours Saturday and Sunday beginning Memorial Day weekend. Owner Rhonda Milstead said the cafe won’t have evening hours this year. Instead, she’s hoping to book more private events such as wedding receptions, anniversary and birthday parties and corporate events. Falls Overlook Cafe has a separate catering menu for those gatherings. As for the regular menu, customers will find the always popular house-made soups and Land O’Lakes ice cream. Milstead is taste-testing new options, looking at items such as pizza rolls topped with pesto, a pork belly tart, and a ham and brie sandwich with peach jam and maple bacon aioli. Here’s a peek at some of the possibilities.

Morrie’s Steakhouse has wrapped up recipe testing and released its new lounge menu. Among the choices are honey smoked salmon nachos, Korean beef lettuce wraps, sea bass fritters and chorizo stuffed dates.

Sometimes there’s a downside to popularity. Breadico no longer accepts takeout orders after 6 p.m. Friday and Saturday. According to a Facebook post, the change will allow the restaurant at Eighth Street and Weber Avenue “to provide the best possible service and execute our new menu.” Breadico, which has expanded from a bakery to full-service restaurant over the years, serves pizza, pasta, salads and appetizers on its evening menu.

For the second year in a row, Miner Brewing Co. at Prairie Berry East Bank won the Mash Madness competition sponsored by Downtown Sioux Falls Inc. Drinkers picked Prairie Berry’s Pineapple Milkshake IPA over brews from Fernson on 8th, Remedy Brewing Co., WoodGrain Brewing Co. and Gandy Dancer Brew Works at Monks House of Ale Repute. The beer is available for a limited time at Prairie Berry’s tasting room on East Eighth Street.

The Perkins Restaurant & Bakery at 2604 W. 41st St. is closed for remodeling. Work started March 18, and the restaurant will reopen Wednesday — “just in time for Easter,” franchise owner Steve Kuper said. Except for the ceiling, everything in the dining room will be new, Kuper said.

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Restaurant Roundup: Oyster bar coming, Falls Overlook Cafe reopening

By Rosemary McCoy

Diners are in for a lot of treats: An oyster bar is coming downtown — at least for a day, Falls Overlook Cafe is reopening, SDSU ice cream is back downtown and Morrie’s Steakhouse has a new lounge menu.